First Breath

Jesus' resurrection is a source of endless fascination to me.  My mind can't fully grasp it, but loves to feel out the idea and try to picture it.  I simply can't fathom the miracle of God that happened that day.


Try to picture the scene.  Picture the hands taking Jesus off the cross.  Picture the fearful pharisee secretly arranging with Pilate to take care of the body.  Picture those lifeless arms and legs being wrapped up in cloth like a mummy, with seventy-five pounds of expensive spices stuffed in.  The body that had been alive just hours before was laid to rest in a tomb and sealed off.  It was a customary burial, to honor the body and allow it to decompose in peace out of sight and smell of anyone who survived Him.


Now picture what it was like in that tomb.  Just imagine you could see inside.  For three days, absolute stillness.  Not a whisper of air, not a flicker of light, not a sound.  And then--motion.


The mouth takes in air.  Dead lungs fill with oxygen.  Blood once again flows through the veins.  The man sits up, takes off his face cloth and folds it off to the side. This is no longer a dead body; this is the living God.


Jesus' resurrection changed everything.  


When the first person saw Him alive, Jesus said to her, "Go to my brothers and say to them, "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."  Brothers.  Father.  Jesus welcomed us into His family by becoming a part of ours.  The last barrier between Him and us was broken when He became like us in death.  His Father is our Father!  Even more amazing, our God is His God.


Because He became like us in death, reconciling us to the Father, we who are in Christ now become like Him in a new kind of death.  A death like His death.  Temporary.


You will die someday.  The last gasp of air will escape your lips and will not be replaced by another.  Your heart will stop pumping blood.  Your body will be moved and handled and redressed and, probably, put in a coffin, as is the custom.  And the lid will be closed and a hole will be dug and dirt will be sprinkled over you.  Then shoveled and dumped and smoothed out over the top, and marked with a stone.  


But there will be no three days waiting for you, friend.  There will be no three days of dark stillness.  For your last breath will be followed by your first.  Heaven will surround you, fill you.  Your life will begin just as soon as it ends.  


And there, in heaven, we will see our Savior.  We will see the scars, the wounds, the lips that breathed the same oxygen we did.  We will behold our brother, our God.  And forever we will live with Him.